That state of metric conversion in the US

[[email protected]]

Fahrenheit could be considered more modern conceptually than Celsius

because it's based on a 2^6 binary division between two arbitrary

temperatures (the freezing point of water and human body

temperature)-- rather than the old fashioned base-10 division between

two arbitrary temperatures of Celsius.



It's also more sensible for measuring the temperature of rooms because

a 1°F change isn't noticeable by most people, whereas a resolution of

1°C is a bit coarse.



(-4°C with winds of 39km/h here)

The Fahrenheit temperature scale was created for manufacturability. In order to calibrate his alcohol thermometer, he stuck it an ice bath and under his arm. That gave him a two point calibration. He then divided the region in half and then in half again and so on until it was divided into 64 parts.The thermometer worked below freezing so he added another 32 divisions below that. Because of errors in Fahrenheit's thermometer body temperature ended up at 96 degrees.

 

[George Herold]

Different intercept too. Which causes confusion with conversions since
a delta-T of one is just a ratio of the delta-T of the other, but
absolute temperaturs have to have another term in there.

Eg. 100 degrees per second F = 55.556 degrees per second C

100 degrees F = 37.778 degrees C

If everyone used Kelvin this problem could be avoided.

My pet peeve is low temperatures reported in F or C.
"Scientists today reported blah blah blah at – 450 F.”

It makes no sense. Once we’re talking about science then Kelvin is
the only temperature scale, and everyone should know it. Temperature
is energy, (or average energy per degree of freedom.) both are
positive definite.

George H.

 

[Nico Coesel]

[email protected] wrote:

[...]

In California you can get asterisks. Even heart shapes AFAIK. It's crazy
out here.
First I've heard of non-alphameric characters in license plate
numbers. I wonder how other states handle it in their software?
The strangest thing I've seen here on license plates were Auburn and
LSU logos (on GA plates). GA and GA Tech, I understand but the
competition? I guess if they can get you to volunteer $25/yr to the
treasury, why not?

Some are a bit gross though:

http://www.r8pl8z.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/love-to-fck-funny-license-plate.jpg

I've never seen characters other than alphanumeric ones. Strange. I
wonder how out-of-state police departments handle them? Ignore the
special characters?

No idea, it's their problem

Other parts of the world are used to that. For example, in Germany we
saw many Russian trucks after the iron curtain crumbled away. Their
plates were partially unintelligible to anyone not familiar with the
kyrillic alphabet.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/cecotto30/5265336675/

Then we had the occasional cars from North Africa:

http://www.olavsplates.com/foto/et_3043.jpg

Germans should take a look at their own license plates. Their license
plates often have a lot of text in them. Some should watch out when
driving in the Netherlands. I once saw a car which said (translated to
English) F... me. Just fill in the dots

Talking about license plates... my wife managed to get rid of the
front license plate on the highway! Something whirled up from behind
the car driving in front of us and crashed into the front or our car
ripping the license plate off.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

The Fahrenheit temperature scale was created for manufacturability. In order to calibrate his alcohol thermometer, he stuck it an ice bath and under his arm.
That gave him a two point calibration. He then divided the region in half and then in half again and so on until it was divided into 64 parts. The thermometer
worked below freezing so he added another 32 divisions below that. ?Because of errors in Fahrenheit's thermometer body temperature ended up at 96 degrees.

More than you likely ever wanted to know:-

http://www.td.mw.tum.de/tum-td/de/forschung/pub/CD_Grigull/127.pdf

 

[Nico Coesel]

I use metric frequently in my work, but apparently metric fasteners are
still a few cents more expensive than standard over here, so there's still
economic pressure, however slight, to continue using them.

Metric is kind of nice because you can "make your own" when it comes to
magic sizes and stuff. Sometimes you want, say, a plate that's 1/4 or
3/8" thick, but it just doesn't look quite right -- visually appealing.
Instead, you could specify 5, 7.5, 10, etc. mm thickness, or other odd
values, assuming it's in stock of course -- and potentially get more
elegant proportions and whatnot. This is analogous to working in
conventional vs. Exx series R/L/C component values: some ratios are easy
to get (factor of 2 = 1k:2k vs. 1k:2.2k off by 10%), others not so much.
On further analysis, one would probably find it's a wash, in the end.

Insert usual blurb about the inch technically being metric (i.e., so
effing what, specify 6.35mm bolts instead).

Interestingly the inch was rounded to 25.4mm for easier metric
conversion partly because in the US and the UK they had different
inches. So in a way the inch is already metric.

But it depends on what you are used to. Back in the old days when all
components where specified in inches I mostly used mils when designing
PCBs. It actually took me some time to switch to the metric system for
PCB design

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:
[...]

In California you can get asterisks. Even heart shapes AFAIK. It's crazy
out here.
First I've heard of non-alphameric characters in license plate
numbers. I wonder how other states handle it in their software?
The strangest thing I've seen here on license plates were Auburn and
LSU logos (on GA plates). GA and GA Tech, I understand but the
competition? I guess if they can get you to volunteer $25/yr to the
treasury, why not?

Some are a bit gross though:

http://www.r8pl8z.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/love-to-fck-funny-license-plate.jpg

I've never seen characters other than alphanumeric ones. Strange. I
wonder how out-of-state police departments handle them? Ignore the
special characters?

No idea, it's their problem

Other parts of the world are used to that. For example, in Germany we
saw many Russian trucks after the iron curtain crumbled away. Their
plates were partially unintelligible to anyone not familiar with the
kyrillic alphabet.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/cecotto30/5265336675/

Then we had the occasional cars from North Africa:

http://www.olavsplates.com/foto/et_3043.jpg

Germans should take a look at their own license plates. Their license
plates often have a lot of text in them. Some should watch out when
driving in the Netherlands. I once saw a car which said (translated to
English) F... me. Just fill in the dots

Talking about license plates... my wife managed to get rid of the
front license plate on the highway! Something whirled up from behind
the car driving in front of us and crashed into the front or our car
ripping the license plate off.

The front one is a waste, anyway. Many states got rid of them eons
ago, if they ever had them.

 

[[email protected]]

It's not a revelation to anyone that the smallest fact would be
amazing to you.

 

[[email protected]]

Both of these responses prove my point. Fractions aren't very useful
for anything other than fractions and have a hard time dealing with
anything outside of that domain.

BTW, why would you write 10/64 rather than 5/32? But then that also
shows the absurdity of these fractions. Fractions divide, decimals rule!

Because 10/64s is larger than 9/64s. This sort of thing is common for
construction and woodworking. Just forget the denominator and use the
numerator; less to remember.

 

[[email protected]]

Do you *really* have to demonstrate exactly how big of a dumbass you
are, with every post? Shoo, loon.

 

[Tim Williams]

Germans should take a look at their own license plates. Their license
plates often have a lot of text in them. Some should watch out when
driving in the Netherlands. I once saw a car which said (translated to
English) F... me. Just fill in the dots

Maybe it was from the small town in Austria, ....ing?

Tim

 

[[email protected]]

Gross? What a dumbass. You can stop proving my point any time.

 

[Joerg]

[email protected] wrote:
[...]

In California you can get asterisks. Even heart shapes AFAIK. It's crazy
out here.
First I've heard of non-alphameric characters in license plate
numbers. I wonder how other states handle it in their software?
The strangest thing I've seen here on license plates were Auburn and
LSU logos (on GA plates). GA and GA Tech, I understand but the
competition? I guess if they can get you to volunteer $25/yr to the
treasury, why not?
Some are a bit gross though:

http://www.r8pl8z.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/love-to-fck-funny-license-plate.jpg
I've never seen characters other than alphanumeric ones. Strange. I
wonder how out-of-state police departments handle them? Ignore the
special characters?

No idea, it's their problem

Other parts of the world are used to that. For example, in Germany we
saw many Russian trucks after the iron curtain crumbled away. Their
plates were partially unintelligible to anyone not familiar with the
kyrillic alphabet.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/cecotto30/5265336675/

Then we had the occasional cars from North Africa:

http://www.olavsplates.com/foto/et_3043.jpg

Germans should take a look at their own license plates. Their license
plates often have a lot of text in them. Some should watch out when
driving in the Netherlands. I once saw a car which said (translated to
English) F... me. Just fill in the dots

Germans have vanity plates now? I was there late last year, never saw any.

Talking about license plates... my wife managed to get rid of the
front license plate on the highway! Something whirled up from behind
the car driving in front of us and crashed into the front or our car
ripping the license plate off.

That happens a lot out here. Sometimes big stuff flies around on the
highways, such as fireplace logs. Had one bang through underneath my
car, luckily it has sturdy skid plates.

 

[josephkk]

Interestingly the inch was rounded to 25.4mm for easier metric
conversion partly because in the US and the UK they had different
inches. So in a way the inch is already metric.

But it depends on what you are used to. Back in the old days when all
components where specified in inches I mostly used mils when designing
PCBs. It actually took me some time to switch to the metric system for
PCB design

No argument there. Device package outlines and such used to be tied to
the US inch. Now most package outlines and pin/contact spacing is
basically metric, with translations to imperial.

OTOH these changes have made hash out of correctly reading old surveying
data which is minimum 5 and usually 6 or more places accurate. I have
some surveyor friends. It is actually a lot worse than that, ask a
surveyor though, i do NOT know enough to answer those questions.

?-)

 

[Jasen Betts]

Then we had the occasional cars from North Africa:

http://www.olavsplates.com/foto/et_3043.jpg

It says "3043" in arabic numerals on the right
and for your onvenience "3043" in european numerals
on the left.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

But it depends on what you are used to. Back in the old days when all
components where specified in inches I mostly used mils when designing
PCBs. It actually took me some time to switch to the metric system for
PCB design

Hello,

it is not very nice to manually rout a PCB when you got a mix of parts
with different pin distancesbased on inch and mm, for instance 100 mils
and 2 mm.

Bye

 

[Jasen Betts]

Canada reverted back to pounds for food and US gallons which are smaller when free trade started and US goods appeared cheaper as did any food by the pound rather than kg or 2.2lb.

old People still use inches, feet &miles if they prefer but are equally conversant in millimeters and km

But to use 'F which is non-linear is so wrong to be used by any engineers compared to 'C.

F is as linear as C, it could be argued its more linear as it's origin is closer to the origin.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

A0 paper is defined as 1m^2 with sqrt(2):1 aspect ratio so you can fold
it in half to make A1 which is 1/2 m^2 etc.

So A4 - the usual European printer/copier size - is 1/16 m^2.

Hello,

each of this formats from the large A0 to the small A6 has the same
aspect ratio. It is easy to blow up a A4 sheet to A3 using a copier. Try
this using american paper formats with different aspect ratio for each size.

Bye

 

[[email protected]]

each of this formats from the large A0 to the small A6 has the same
aspect ratio. It is easy to blow up a A4 sheet to A3 using a copier. Try
this using american paper formats with different aspect ratio for each size.

Bye

You obviously are not referring to A sized drawings being 8.5 by 11
and B sized being 11 by 17 , and C sized being 17 by 22 etc.

Dan

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

You obviously are not referring to A sized drawings being 8.5 by 11
and B sized being 11 by 17 , and C sized being 17 by 22 etc.

Hello,

well you should have done some math:

the aspect ratio of A sized drawings being 8.5 by 11 is 1.2941, of B
sized being 11 by 17 is 1.5454 and C sized being 17 by 22 is again 1.2941.

You may scale from A size to C, but not from A to B or from B to C or
vice versa. You can only scale by a factor of 2.

Using the european formats A0 to A6, you are always able to scale by a
factor of 1.4142 or 2 or 2.88284 or 4 up and down.

Bye

 

[MrTallyman]

Hello,

each of this formats from the large A0 to the small A6 has the same
aspect ratio. It is easy to blow up a A4 sheet to A3 using a copier. Try
this using american paper formats with different aspect ratio for each size.

Bye

As it relates to ANSI.

A size

2 A = one B

WTF are you on about?

2 B = 1 C

2 C = 1 D